Vaccine maker Biological E acquires Akorn's injectable plant in India for $10 million

Flu vaccine (Representative Image)

Vaccine maker Biological E (BE), on August 17 said it has acquired Akorn India, a subsidiary of US-based Akorn which manufactures speciality generic injectable medicines and vaccines for $10 million in cash.

BE said the acquisition will enable the Hyderabad-based company to enhance its manufacturing capabilities and capacities to produce and supply its vaccines and injectable medicines.

"BE is in the process of developing a COVID-19 vaccine and may be able to use the facilities at Akorn India Paonta Sahib Plant in Himachal Pradesh for commercial-scale manufacture of the vaccine at the appropriate time," BE said in a statement.

The Akorn India plant in Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh has a fully staffed sterile injectable manufacturing facility with a 39,000 sq. metres of built-up area spread over a 14-acre campus with an annual capacity for about 135 million units with the potential for immediate expansion of a further 30 million units.

“We would leverage BE’s and Akorn India’s capabilities to enhance our supply capacities both in vaccines and in generic injectables," said Mahima Datla, Managing Director of BE.

"The timing of this acquisition is fortuitous as it will immediately allow us to expand our capacity to manufacture our investigational COVID-19 vaccine. With these capacities, we would be in a position to offer over 1 billion doses per annum,” BE said in a statement.

BE has recently tied up with Johnson and Johnson to manufacture 400-500 million doses of the latter's COVID-19 vaccine for India and other countries. BE has entered into a licencing agreement with Baylor College of Medicine of the University of Houston, Texas, for the development of COVID-19 vaccine.